Are you looking for the best Christmas photo book gifts for photographers in Belgium?

It is that time of the year when we start thinking about what present to give to the people we love. It is not always easy to choose given the amount of offers, but if your loved one is a photographer or aspires to be one, I am here to help 🙂

Photo books are an awesome gift for everybody, but more so for photographers. They are not just books full of pictures, they are library of ideas to inspire you and give you the courage you need to go out, explore the world and photograph what you feel important and interesting.

There is an enormous amount of books on sale nowadays and choosing the right one can be painful, so here is a little help. If you don’t see something you like, do not hesitate to send me an email and I will help.

For those of you shopping on Amazon, clicking on the books photos will send you directly there.

Saul Leiter: All About Saul Leiter – A photographer’s gift to the viewer is sometimes beauty in the overlooked ordinary. This collection reveals the secrets of his appeal, from his life philosophy and lyricism to masterful colours and compositions. Some 200 works – including early street photographs, images for advertising, nudes and paintings – cover Leiter’s career from the 1940s onwards, accompanied by quotations from the artist himself that express his singular world view.

Alex Webb: The Suffering of Light – This is the first comprehensive monograph charting the career of acclaimed American photographer Alex Webb. Gathering some of his most iconic images, many of which were taken in the far corners of the earth, this exquisite book brings a fresh perspective to his extensive catalog. Recognized as a pioneer of American color photography since the 1970s, Webb has consistently created photographs characterized by intense color and light.

Alex Webb: Istanbul: City of a Hundred Names – In Istanbul: City of a Hundred Names, Webb’s ability to distill gesture, color, and contrasting cultural tensions into a single, beguiling frame is used to full effect in presenting his vision of Istanbul: an urban cultural center rich with the incandescence of its past, a city of minarets and pigeons rising to the heavens during the dawn call to Muslim prayers, yet also a city of ATM machines and designer jeans. Turkish author Orhan Pamuk contributes a text excerpted from Istanbul, his critically acclaimed portrait of the city.

Alexx Webb: Slant Rhymes – Slant Rhymes is a conversation between two world renowned photographers, Magnum photographer Alex Webb and poet and photographer Rebecca NorrisWebb, a married creative couple who have authored 18 books. Selected from photographs taken during the Webbs’ nearly 30-year friendship and later marriage and creative partnership, this group of 82 photographs are paired―one of Alex’s, one of Rebecca’s―to create a series of visual rhymes that talk to one another―often at a “slant” and in intriguing and revealing ways.

Steve McCurry: The Iconic Photographs – American photographer Steve McCurry (b.1950) is universally recognized as one of today’s finest image-makers and has won many of photography’s top awards. This new monograph brings together the most memorable and beautiful of his images, taken around the world over the last 30 years. McCurry’s ability to cross boundaries of language and culture to capture fleeting moments of human experience is unique. With his discerning eye for form and colour, shape and symmetry, he offers us windows into other worlds.

Steve McCurry: Untold: The Stories Behind the Photographs: Steve McCurry Untold is the only book to tell the fascinating stories behind McCurry’s most iconic photographs. It explores the travels, methods, and magic that gave birth to his evocative images, delving deep into the true stories behind McCurry’s most important assignments for National Geographic and beyond – including his reunion with the now-legendary ‘Afghan Girl’. Each story includes McCurry’s first-hand account alongside specially commissioned essays, ephemera, and personal photographs from his private archive.

Steve McCurry: India – Steve McCurry: India explores the lives of everyday people in extraordinary settings through the lens of Steve McCurry, one of the most admired photographers working today. This new portfolio of emotive and beautiful photographs from India features 150 previously unpublished images taken across the Indian subcontinent, along with iconic photographs that are famous worldwide.

Sebastião Salgado: GENESIS – “In GENESIS, nature spoke to me through my camera. And I was allowed to listen. ” –Sebastião SalgadoSebastião Salgado was 26 years old when he picked up a camera in 1970 for the first time in his life. A moment that changed him completely. When viewed through the viewfinder of a camera, life suddenly gave him a whole new meaning – he had found his medium, even if it would take years of hard work before he could actually earn a living as a photographer. Salgado, who “always preferred the chiaroscuro of black and white images”, took very little color photographs at the beginning of his career until he finally stopped using it.

Sebastião Salgado: Exodus – This large-scale photo documentation Exodus has become a classic on the subject of migration and displacement. He invested more than six years in the 1990s to portray people around the world who were forced by war, genocide, oppression, misery and hunger to give up their homeland and embark on a journey with an uncertain outcome. In South America, in the Balkans, in the slums of the megacities of Asia, in the Middle East and in the heart of Africa, he met people who were condemned to a life that the happy little part of humanity, living in prosperity and peace, could hardly imagine able.

Henri Cartier-Bresson: Photographer – Reproduced in exquisite black and white, the images in this book range from Henri Cartier-Bresson’s earliest work in France, Spain, and Mexico through his postwar travels in Asia, the US, and Russia, and even include landscapes from the 1970s, when he retired his camera to pursue drawing. While his instinct for capturing what he called the decisive moment was unparalleled, as a photojournalist Cartier-Bresson was uniquely concerned with the human impact of historic events. In his photographs of the liberation of France from the Nazis, the death of Ghandi, and the creation of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, Cartier-Bresson focused on the reactions of the crowds rather than the subjects of the events.

Robert Doisneau: Paris: Les Halles Market – Doisneau’s photographs evoke nostalgia for the days when the now vanished Les Halles market, “the belly of Paris,” sprawled across the center of the city. From fur-clad socialites to burly market porters, Doisneau captured the essence of every brand of Parisian character and the poetry in ordinary scenes: a cheery fruit seller bellowing from behind a pyramid of oranges, a fish vendor haggling over the price of the daily catch, or a mountain of floral bouquets ready to grace Parisian dinner tables. This volume exhibits some of Doisneau’s lesser-known yet extraordinary works, including six rare color photographs.

Irving Penn: Centennial – Penn was among the most esteemed and influential photographers of the 20th century. Over the course of a nearly seventy-year career, he mastered a pared-down aesthetic of studio photography that is distinguished for its meticulous attention to composition, nuance, and detail. This indispensable book features one of the largest selections of Penn’s photographs ever compiled, including famous and beloved images as well as works that have never been published.

Ragnar Axelsson: Last days of the Arctic – Hailed as one of the greatest documentary photographers of our times, Ragnar Axelsson has been recording the changing face of life in the Arctic for some 30 years. This second edition of The Last Days of the Arctic (which was first published in 2010 and quickly became a rarity) presents 160 of his stunning photographs from Canada and Greenland, with superb duotone printing, captions added for the black-and-white photographs and new images. Axelsson’s gorgeous photographs show vast glaciers, sleds gliding across ice and houses buried in snow, but they also depict how the Inuit’s changing way of life prefigures the changes that are on their way to the rest of the world.

Martin Parr: Small World – First published in 1996 Small World is one of the most popular and most important of Martin Parr’s books. This revised and extended edition includes more than 40 new photographs as well as featuring many of Martin Parr’s most iconic images.
It is a biting, very funny satire in which Parr looks at tourism worldwide, exposing the increasingly homogenous ‘global culture’ where in the search for different cultures those same cultures are destroyed.

Elliot Erwitt: Personal Best – Still one of the greatest. His photographs have shaped the visual history of the 20th century and have an impact on the 21st century. Although Erwitt’s work spans several decades and continents as well as numerous topics, they are always immediately recognizable. His spontaneous and original visions speak of true artistry without ever appearing artificial.

Ernst Haas: New York in Color 1952-1962 – Ernst Haas’s color works reveal the photographer’s remarkable genius and remind us on every page why we love New York. When Haas moved from Vienna to New York City in 1951, he left behind a war-torn continent and a career producing black-and-white images. For Haas, the new medium of color photography was the only way to capture a city pulsing with energy and humanity. These images demonstrate Haas’s tremendous virtuosity and confidence with Kodachrome film and the technical challenges of color printing. Unparalleled in their depth and richness of color, brimming with lyricism and dramatic tension, these images reveal a photographer at the height of his career.

Kristen Lubben: Magnum Contact Sheets – This groundbreaking book presents a remarkable selection of contact sheets and ancillary material, revealing how the most celebrated Magnum photographers capture and edit the very best shots. Addressing key questions of photographic practice, the book illuminates the creative methods, strategies, and editing processes behind some of the worlds most iconic images.

Ansel Adams: 400 Photographs – Ansel Adams: 400 Photographs presents the full spectrum of Adams’ work in a single volume for the first time, offering the largest available compilation from his legendary photographic career.

Joel Meyerowitz: Where I Find Myself: A Lifetime Retrospective – In order to best represent the personality of Joel Meyerowitz, who is equally characterized by perfection and spontaneity, this volume is divided into two parts (“Classical” and “Jazz”) and sorted in reverse chronological order. All of the photographer’s major projects are shown: his shots inspired by the artist Giorgio Morandi, his exclusive coverage of Ground Zero, his trips through the United States in the footsteps of Robert Frank, his experiments in comparing black and white and color photography and his street scenes, the have now achieved cult status.

Robert Frank: The Americans – Robert Frank’s The Americans changed the course of twentieth-century photography. In eighty-three photographs, Frank looked beneath the surface of American life to reveal a people plagued by racism, ill-served by their politicians, and rendered numb by a rapidly expanding culture of consumption. Yet he also found novel areas of beauty in simple, overlooked corners of American life.

Peter Lindbergh: Untold Stories – On display are photos from the early 1980s to the present, which change the view of Lindbergh’s extensive oeuvre again and illustrate his special idea of ​​fashion photography. We encounter famous Lindbergh recordings, many previously unpublished pictures and commissioned work for magazines such as Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, W, Interview, Rolling Stone or Wall Street Journal.

Annie Leibovitz : Portraits 2005-2016 – This book brings together the photographs of emblematic personalities of our time artists, performers, authors, musicians, directors, actors, scientists, entrepreneurs, athletes, business leaders, political leaders.
For nearly fifty years, Annie Leibovitz has reported through her photographs of the world around us. She takes a look that is both subtle and disturbing on her subjects and demonstrates an astonishing ability to reveal the intimate dimension of these personalities, even the most famous.

Josef Koudelka: Exiles – The sense of mystery that fills these photographs – mostly taken during Koudelka’s years of wandering through Europe and the United States since leaving his native Czechoslovakia – speaks of passion and reserve, of his ‘rage to see’. The brilliant accompanying essay by Robert Delpire invokes the soul of man in search of a spiritual homeland; it speaks with a remarkable and unforgettable dignity.

Nick Brandt: Across the Ravaged Land – Across the Ravaged Land is the third and final volume in Nick Brandt’s trilogy of books documenting the disappearing animals of eastern Africa. The book offers a darker vision of this world, still filled with a stunning beauty but now tragically tainted and fast disappearing at the hands of man.
In addition to a range of starkly powerful animal portraits, Brandt introduces some new themes, as humans make an appearance for the first time. He also contributes two essays summing up his photographic odyssey, which has taken more than a decade of intensive work to complete.

Gregory Crewdson – Beneath the Roses – Best known for his elaborately choreographed, large-scale photographs, Gregory Crewdson is one of the most exciting and important artists working today. The images take place in the homes, streets, and forests of unnamed small towns. The photographs portray emotionally charged moments of seemingly ordinary individuals caught in ambiguous and often disquieting circumstances. Both epic in scale and intimate in scope, these visually breathtaking photographs blur the distinctions between cinema and photography, reality and fantasy, what has happened and what is to come.

Bruce Gilden: Lost & Found – An iconic street photographer with a unique style, Bruce Gilden is defined by his exuberant pictures, and his original and direct manner of shooting the faces of passers-by with a flash. But how has his style evolved? When digging through his personal archives recently, Gilden unearthed hundreds of unseen contact prints and negatives taken by him in New York between 1978 and 1984, preceding those in his seminal collection Facing New York. From these thousands of original images – most of which are previously unpublished – Gilden has selected the eighty images that are reproduced here.

Best Christmas Photo book Gifts for Photographers by Ivo Popov // Photography Workshops in Brussels

Looking for a different Christmas gift? Don’t hesitate to contact me at ivo.popov@gmail.com